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Saturday, 19 November 2011

Necrons: Storm Lord - No guns? 1750

So the Storm Lord does not really work with the current Necron thinking - Solar Pulses to induce Night Fighting in the enemy turn and remove their shooting..he instead keeps night fight going at all times, the best part being that on a 6 ,per unengaged enemy unit, they are hit with D6 S8 AP5 hits..

But what about the rest of your army?

What the chuff are they shooting at?

Not much with night fight.. So to take the storm lord do we need to build an army that doesn't shoot? Or only shooting at an incredibly short range (read: 12" or closer) to make sure they can see what they want to hit.. the issues with that are obvious, but lets try anyway..

These units?
Scarabs
Spyders
Wraiths (but will prolly not run them in favour of Scarabs)
Lychguard
Immortals
Maybe just Warriors too.. everything else can do the heavy lifting.

We will also need Veils. Not easy with an already very expensive HQ. In fact, the maximum you can get is 3 Veils in any army through the use of an Overlord and the combination of Zahndrekh and Obyron.. Zahn grabbing another Court and Obyron having his own..

Hmmm.. so for 3 Veils thats 3 special HQ's...No way.

So just 2 Veils.. I'll explain the Veils in this idea shortly. Fuck it...prolly just one veil at this points value..

Eugh. It's a clusterfuck this idea. Innovative, but a clusterfuck ne'ertheless.

It prolly doesn't even work lol!!

Scarabs first - they are going to do the majority of the heavy lifting regarding anti tank and indeed anti infantry vs smaller MSU units or even up to 10 dudes.. no more though...at least, not on their own..

Maxed out Scarabs are not expensive and, whilst easily killed with flamer/blasts and S6, are survivable and a mega annoyance.

Lets go 3 x 10 for just 450 points now.

Spyders to make more Scarabs..

3 x 3 would be nice, but very expensive, even at bog standard 50 per Spyder.
So 3 x 2 will do for now, these guys are going to be moving and running after their little buddies and pump out 2 more per squad each turn.

On turn one then we have 3 x 12 = 36 Scarabs, gaining a few inches for putting the new bases on the front of the squads, netting around 6" of 'free' movement. PLEASE NOTE: I am not talking about massive first turn charges across the entire enemy army with this kind of shenanigans, merely talking about getting the units into place ready for following turns. The unquestable FAQ of this "first turn charge into whole army" bullshit is not even worth doing..you are a douche if you do this...
Turn 2, we will in all likelihood have 3 x 14 = 42 scarabs and will be charging that turn without a doubt.

But what about the rest of the list.
Obviously we have the Stormlord.
No real discussion here. 4+ seize initiative and Night Fight extending as long as you roll over the turn number. You will keep Night Fight till turn 3 normally.. more than enough.
Plus his mini Death Ray.. meh..

Oh, and he drops D6 S8 lightning on every unengaged enemy unit whilst night fighting is in effect...as long as you roll a 6 for that unit...so a mechanised army with maybe 12 units max on the table (at 1750)...bearing in mind the troops inside don't count!
We may drop 2 vehicles with lightning..
Typically, we'll get one vehicle per turn...for two turns, then everything starts getting engaged in CC and Night Fight is less likely..

We need troops.
Immortals would be ideal, but I have an idea for something else I want to run in this army, so I am going with basic warriors.
Remember that the Warriors will be protected throughout the game by Night Fight, until later turns, where they will hopefully not be able to be killed easily as we will have dismantled the enemy.

I'd like 2 x 10 Warriors and 2 x 5 Warriors.
More than 10 is not too efficient and the 5 man squads can grab cover behind the 10, stay in reserve to walk onto C&C objective or whatever really.
The 10 man squads are actually semi capable later in the game so I am happy with just 4 for now.

That leaves some 385 points and is perfect for what I want to do next.

Veil Cryptek with Lychguard.

Let the enemy sweat where they are going to go Turn 1...preparing for a Turn 2 assault en masse with all the spyders.
Again, whilst only T5 and 3+, they will be protected for that first turn through night fight..

However, there are difficulties with this. If we drop them in to a relatively safe Deep Strike location ready for a Turn 2 charge, the boys are likely to only be around 12-15" away from the enemy lines (as we'll run to spread out from blasts and get closer if necessary to ensure the charge).. the problem? Turn 1 for the enemy or Turn 2 if Necrons went second, the enemy has to remove them and will be close enough to see them with Night Fighting.. especially with Searchlights.. just light up the Lychguard and remove them, or better yet, drive up with some plasma and rapid fire them off the table.

So I think the Lychguard stay in 'reserve' ..not actual reserve, but on table and in a safe distance, i.e your deployment zone. Then, once the Scarabs have gotten stuck into the enemy tanks/transports, then we can throw in the Lychguard in combination with the 6 MC Spyders to take out contents (MSU Razor gays) or remaining tanks with lowered AV.

Of course, if there are, say Predators or Hydra's out on the flanks, then the Lychguard can teleport in for them on Turn 1, hit it Turn 2 and still join in the second wave assault on Turns 3-4.

SO how many Lychguard? we said we had 385 left?
A Veil Cryptek is 65 with just Veil and Abyssal Staff.

Thats 320 for Lychguard and nets us an 8 man squad. This is nasty anti tank and can multi assault several with confidence. They can take on MEQ units, even those with one or two power weapons because even losing 2-3 of them, we still have enough to remove that MEQ squad. 3 attacks each on the charge is decent = 15 attacks, 8 hits, 6.5 dead MEQ.. these should be MSU squads or medium sized Grey Hunter packs etc.
They can of course, charge all the Guardsmen they like.. in combination with some Spyders or Scarbs..

The list then?

Storm Lord

1 x Veil Cryptek

8 x Lychguard

10 x Warriors

10 x Warriors

5 x Warriors

5 x Warriors

10 x Scarabs

10 x Scarabs

10 x Scarabs

2 x Canoptek Tomb Spyder

2 x Canoptek Tomb Spyder

2 x Canoptek Tomb Spyder

So, no shooting. Shooting is for pussies.
We like to nom nom nom our way through armour.
And then gently walk to our objectives.

Any merit to this? Could it be quite sick? Is it just shit? Let me know, how do you run the Storm Lord?

So there is a fair amount of shooting here, presumably for later in the game? Or are you just ignoring the stom lords lightning? Tachyon arrow + chronometron is a pretty expensive trick no?

Have you tried it yet? I like the cc elements here, its a different way to play the game

Mind games with the tacyhon arrow? And whether youll cancel night fight and use your shooting? So do they advance to close you or slowly hugging cover? Not sure the shooting is a control method here.. id be more scared of turn 2 with 30 scarabs...

Mind tricks in the sense that if the opponent realises that I can charge him first turn with the scarabs he must deploy very defensively, leaving you a lot of space and enough time to bulk up the scarab units.

Tachyon + Chronometron is expensive but I want to try it since it the only truly reliable thing I can think of on a cron foot list that could take on a heavy vehicle. Rest of the turns it can help the Cryptek with his shooting.

Do you prefer the more close combat oriented version with the Destro lord and wraiths?

I think you are right anonymous..the necrons themselves are resilient to Scarabs..but thats not to say other forces are.. I was thinking Orks and Nids would give this force a run for its money..as in, they'd kill it, dead..

Nice and straight forward. Good for a "Phalanx" type of deployment with the 20 Warrior squad acting as cover for the rest while providing rude amounts of 12" RF and large enough to be a valid bumper.

That big squad will eat MSU, it will eat medium CC squads, it will suppress vehicles, it will regenerate 1/2 of what is killed and until you deal with it, it has it's buddy behind it feeding in D3 replacements. So, what are you going to kill?

The big NW squad? The Ghost Ark carrying the little NW squad? The Scarabs hunting your vehicles? The Barges with their super Tesla? I

One thing that got pointed out playing this list, I can always pop a Solar Pulse to give me long range shots (as in a game vs. 'Nids).